Lazarus Opens His Eyes
by BrownieFox
Summary: Jack Murdock wakes up, six feet under, very much alive.


Jack wakes up to complete darkness.

He wakes suddenly and harshly, gasping as if he has been underwater for far too long. His first breath of air, lungs expanding, heart pumping, blood moving, is painful, a pain that sinks all the way to the marrow in his bones. The darkness feels like it's bearing down on him and as Jack struggles around he finds that he's in a box, a small box that gives him almost no space to move. The walls are covered in a fabric, something smooth, but it does nothing to calm his heart as it beats faster and faster, a jackhammer in his chest.

Jack pushes on the ceiling of the box. It barely budges. He kicks it, as best he can, and gets the same result. It smells like rot in here, old rot and decay and death, and as Jack realizes this he gags a bit. God, where is he? Where's Matty? How long has he been here? His memories are hard to recall, overshadowed by the anxiety and adrenaline and fear that is the shitty situation he's found himself in.

He struggles for a bit longer, shouts, screams for help. Nobody responds. Not to help him, not to tell him to shut up, or demands, or anything that could give him the slightest hint as to what's going on. Jack manages to get the lid to lift just a bit, just enough for a finger to scrape against something cold and thick. He rubs it between his fingers and his heart stops as he realizes what it is.

Dirt.

He's been buried alive.

He's trapped in this box. There's nobody coming for him. He's alone. He's going to suffocate down here. Who's going to take care of Matty? Still at home, still probably waiting for him to get back from the match against Cre-

Creel.

Jack's oncoming panic attack stops short, that train of thought coming to an abrupt and screeching halt. The match with Creel. He was supposed to take the fall, but he'd wanted to give his son, give Matty, something to be proud of. Jack lifts a hand to his face, where he still has a cut on his lip, across his nose, above his eye. Now that he's less panicked, can think a bit more clearly, he can feel the bruises from the fight. It still takes him a moment to put together why that's significant.

The alley.

The gun.

The gunshot.

He'd been shot.

Jack twists around in the small space, feeling for a bullet wound. He can't find one. He feels like he normally does after a match. Tired and sore and with a collection of injures. But he can remember getting shot, the sharp and intense pain. He can remember thinking, just as he had earlier, about Matty being alone. He'd known he would almost certainly be killed for not taking the fall, but he'd still been so disappointed, so sad, that he really was leaving Matty.

As he's trying to find any hint of the gunshot wound, he realizes he's wearing nice clothes. His fingers run over the sleeve cuffs, the nice vest and suit jacket. Even without being able to see them, he knows that they're nicer than the suit he owns. He doesn't have many chances to wear it, but he owns one. This isn't it. It isn't frayed like everything Jack owns. It's uncomfortable, stiff and awkward and now he's shifting around trying to find a more comfortable position. A weird part of him decides that comfort matters, even if he's just going to die when his oxygen runs out.

The pieces of the mystery situation he's found himself in are all there, but he can't put them together. Buried alive, in a nice suit, no bullet wound, the strong smell of death.

It all seems arbitrary, since he's going to die. He tosses them aside for now and thinks about Matt. He'll have enough money to get into any college he wants, the last thing that Jack could do for his kid. Will Maggie get his message? Is there anything she can do for him? Jack hopes there is. Maybe Matty will have a hard time accepting Maggie, but he needs to not be alone. He knew Matt had trouble making friends in school, trouble connecting with people that was only worsened when he was blinded by both him making less of an effort and the other kids giving the blind kid a wide berth.

His thoughts stay on Matt, as he lies there who-knows-how-many feet under. He thinks about his son's first words and first steps, his bright smile, his small hands holding onto Jack's as they walked down the street. All the A's the kid got in school, report cards placed on the fridge along with any picture the kid ever drew. Hands, shaky at first but then steadying with time and practice, pulling needle through skin, cleaning the wounds on Jack's face when he was too exhausted to do it himself, barely able to keep his eyes open.

He wants his last thought to be of his son.

oOo

There is a sound above him.

It's constant and repetitive. At first he isn't sure he's really hearing something, but it gets louder, closer. It takes him too long to realize what it is.

Somebody is digging him out of this grave.

'_We're Murdocks, we get hit a lot.'_

Jack sets a hand on the roof of his coffin. He'd been so prepared for death, both during the match against Creel, and then upon finding himself buried alive. Who would come for him, would find him here, left underground to die?

'_But we get back up.'_

Now, though, now that he knows there's somebody out there, a chance he'll make it out of this alive, something warm grows inside his chest, a hot fire over the cold dread and acceptance that had settled into him. It burns through the grief that he'd never see his son again, burning through his veins.

'_Right dad?'_

Jack pounds against the coffin, beating it ferociously. The old wood starts to splinter, sticking through the fabric that had surrounded it. They pierce his fists, bloodying his knuckles, but Jack can hardly feel the pain. He's going to live, he's going to survive, he's going to see Matty again.

'_We always get up.'_

There's dirt on the other side of the wood. It falls onto Jack's face, into his eyes and mouth. He takes a moment to struggle out of the suit jacket, putting it over his head and then clawing at the dirt. It's dense and thick, quickly filling the spaces underneath his fingernails. It's cold too, numbing his fingers and hands. He doesn't care. The inferno inside of him rages on, drives him to keep tearing through the earth, digging himself upward. The dirt is pushed into his coffin. He's barely thinking as the devil the Murdock's carry claws at his chest in tandem with his hands as he rips and shreds the ground above him.

Jack's hand breaks through dirt and into air. The devil screams at the victory and Jack starts to widen the hole. There's somebody on the other side, something working to make the hole bigger, hands grabbing Jack's arms and helping to haul him out of the grave. He rips the suit jacket off of his head and breaths in deep lungfuls of clean and fresh air. Nothing has ever tasted sweeter. The fire in his chest simmers down, back to the warm coals that it usually is.

He collapses forward, landing on his hands and knees. Most of his nails are jagged and torn, the dirt around them dark and damp from blood.

"Oh my god."

Jack looks up. He's still in a hole, though it's low enough that Jack can see out of it. There's a man leaning against one of the dirt walls, sweaty and staring at Jack with wide eyes. He's in casual and dirty clothes and Jack slowly gets to his feet. The adrenaline has left his systems and he sways, leaning against a wall for support.

"Oh my god," The man says again, and this time adds, "You're Jack Murdock."

"Do… who…" Jack struggles to put together a sentence.

"Need help getting out of there?" Another person is crouching at the edge of the pit, a hand extended towards Jack. He looks at it for a moment before accepting the help, climbing the last few feet out of the grave and now he's really free, really alive and out. The person helps the man who'd been in the hole out too and then walks away, to another grave. Jack turns in a slow circle, taking in where he was buried.

It's a graveyard. There are tombstones everywhere and there are people everywhere. There are holes being dug in front of each grave, heaps of upturned dirt in random piles. Jack looks down at the grave he's just emerged from, looks at the tombstone before it and knows what he's going to see before he reads it.

_Jonathan Murdock_

_Loving Father_

His gaze lingers on the date of death. The tombstone looks old and weathered, and Jack walks around the hole so that he can touch it. His bloody fingers leave smears of red as he traces over his name.

"Yeah, that must be weird."

The man who had been down in the hole, the one who had been digging him up, is still standing just a little ways away, still staring at Jack.

"It is." Jack turns to face the man. He feels weak, especially after seeing his own tombstone. "Did I really die?" He asks, because he has to know. Coming back from the dead, being resurrected, that's a divine miracle that a tainted man like Jack doesn't deserve. But what other explanation is there?

"Yeah." The man says, looking sad. He puts a hand forward suddenly and Jack jumps, the movement fast and unexpected. "I'm Foggy, by the way."

"Foggy." Jack repeats and slowly shakes the man's hand.

"You, uh, probably have some questions, and I can answer most of them, but we should get going." Foggy takes a step towards the front of the cemetery as he says that.

"To where?" Jack asks cautiously. He just came back to life (God, is this even real?), he isn't eager to be put back in the ground so soon.

"There's a church that's offered to host all of you until things get sorted out." Foggy explains, leading Jack closer and closer to the cemetery's exit. Jack looks down in the graves that they pass. Most have people in there, digging up others who had woken up six feet under. It's oddly comforting, to not be the only one going through with this, but it came with the guilt of knowing he was happy others were in boxes in the ground panicking over being seemingly buried alive.

"How long?" Jack asks after a moment of quiet as they start walking down the streets of Hell's Kitchen. "How long have I been… dead?"

"A while." Foggy grimaces. He keeps looking at Jack when he thinks Jack isn't looking. "You died in… 1997, right?" For a moment, Jack is surprised and impressed that Foggy knows that, and then remembers that it was right there on his tombstone. "Well, it's 2018 now."

Twenty-one years.

Jack had been dead for twenty-one years.

He stops walking, looking around. Hell's Kitchen looks so different than he remembers it, and he knows that surely Matt has an apartment of his own now but he can't stop himself from looking, trying to find the route back to their apartment, the one he'd left him in when he'd gone to the match against Creel, that Jack had been on his back to before getting cornered in the alley, before getting shot, before dying.

"My son, Matty," Jack says and then Foggy is in front of him, hands on his shoulders.

"Jack, Matt's okay." Foggy promises. "Right now, we need to get you to the church.

"I left him." Doesn't Foggy understand? He needs to see his son. He's alive, and his son is out here somewhere, a grown adult man, almost as old as Jack himself. God, he is, isn't he? Is he married? Does he have a kid of his own?

"Listen, Mr. Murdock, we don't even know how long this thing lasts, or who or what the lady that brought you all back wants. Right now, our main concern is your safety. But I know Matt, and your son is fine."

"You know Matty?" It sounds too good to be true, and most things that do come with a price. It's a lesson Jack has learned over and over.

"When I heard about what happened, that it was your cemetery, I came over as fast as I could." Foggy explains, taking his hands off Jack's shoulders and walking again. Jack follows.

"How do you know Matty?" Jack prods as they continue down the street. It's oddly quiet and deserted, and when Jack looks up he can see a plume of smoke in the distance.

"We were roommates at law school. These days, we have our own little law firm." He smiles as he says that, and Jack smiles himself.

"Matty's a lawyer?" Jack feels a thrill of pride rush through him. A _lawyer. _He always knew his son was destined for something great, something amazing.

"The best I know." Says Foggy, and he sounds honest. There's another weird silence between them as Foggy regards Jack. "... you're taking this whole 'back to life' thing really well."

"How else can I take it?" Jack shrugs. Foggy shrugs too.

"I don't know. Before the Incident, though, I think I would've at least questioned what the hell was going on."

"The Incident?"

"Some people call it the War of New York, but it wasn't really a war. More like six people fighting off a hoard of aliens and a so-called 'god'." Foggy makes air quotes around the word 'god'. Jack raises an eyebrow.

"Aliens and a god?"

"Two gods, actually, but one was on our side. But yeah, aliens are real, and so is magic apparently. Captain America is alive, by the way. He was frozen for years but they thawed him out. Anyway, the Incident almost wiped Hell's Kitchen right off the map. New buildings, but still the same neighborhood." Foggy looks around the street fondly while Jack is still processing what he just learned.

Aliens? Gods? The magic he should've seen coming, in retrospect. But he was one of those guys who'd never so much as met a mutant, despite them being very much real. It all seems a bit crazy, but maybe his life is crazy. He just came back from the dead, after all.

"Alright, we're here."

Foggy stopped just outside of the church grounds, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking expectantly from it to Jack.

"You aren't coming?" Jack doesn't make any move to approach the church. There are still so many questions about his son he wants to ask, but he doesn't know how to start. Foggy shakes his head, looking honestly sad.

"No, they want to keep civilians out for now. M- One of the nuns told me that it's just until they get a better understanding of what's going on here, and until the Avengers sort out the witch problem." Foggy tilts his head in the direction of the smoke. Jack doesn't bother asking who the Avengers are.

"Will you… can you tell Matty that I'm fine? That, that I'll come and get him just as soon as all this is over." Something weird takes over Foggy's face, an expression that Jack can't name (not that he'd ever been good with expression).

"Yeah. I'll tell him." Jack starts to walk to the church, but Foggy grabs his arm, the weird expression still on his face. "Mr. Murdock… Matt wanted to be here."

"I know." Jack says, and he does. He doesn't know why Matt isn't here, but he knows that if he could Matt would've been the one to dig him up. Foggy lets go of Jack and Jack walks to the church. Just before opening the door, he turns around. Foggy has something held up to his head, a phone probably, but Jack can't hear him. He lets his gaze drift upwards, to the smoke still in the air. There's a flash of lightning moments later, and it takes a few seconds for the sound of it to reach him.

Jack enters the church.

It isn't too crowded, but Jack remembers how many people were still digging up graves at the cemetery and figures that it will only be a matter of time. There are priests and nuns, but there are far more people in what must've once been very nice clothes were now covered in dirt. Jack walks past some of them and sees others with bloody hands like his. One of the priests approach him and asks for his name, crossing it off of some checklist and nodding. He's directed to sit in a pew and told somebody would be over to help him eventually.

"Never a boring day in New York, eh?" The man sitting in the pew behind Jack says and Jack turns just enough to see him. He's tall and lanky with dark skin. His arms are crossed and he's staring at the front of the church but his eyes flicker over to Jack. There's a weird sort of half smile half smirk he has. He is, oddly enough, dressed in more casual clothes, a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants.

"So they say." Jack says, looking down at his hands. There's splinters still in them, and while most of the blood has coagulated by now it's still shiny and these are still some places where the blood continues to well up, threatening to drip. He shifts his hands so that the blood doesn't drop on the floor and instead onto his nice slacks, onto his deadman clothes.

"How'd you go out?" The man asks. When Jack doesn't answer right away, he unfolds one of his hands and taps his chest as a boom of thunder echoes through the church. "Bullet wound. Died protecting my family. Wish I could've done more for them, though. Guess I can now."

"Gunshot too." Jack replies. He can't remember where it had been, though. His head? His chest? He can remember the pain, he can remember the regret of dying but not of what he'd done, no regret for winning the match.

"I'm from Brooklyn." The man continues. "Lucky I was buried all the way over here. I've got family in another graveyard nearby, but that wasn't it. Don't know why exactly they chose that cemetery. Wasn't there for the decision." His gaze drops, the smirk-smile fading.

"Hell's Kitchen. Born and raised." Jack offers and the man nods like he accepts that. Jack looks down at the man's hands. They're wrapped in white bandages and Jack flexes his fingers a bit and winces at the pain. "You got anything to help with these?" He lifts his hands and now the guy is grinning.

"Bit impatient after waking up, huh? Me too." He nods over to one side of the church. "There's a nun who's been taking people to the laundry room and fixing em up, seeing if they 'came back' alright. Maybe you can see if you can convince her to give you some tweezers or something. I can patch ya up myself."

It's a plan. A solid plan, a solid thing to do other than sit here and think. Jack nods, and then nods again, and then stands up, looking in the direction the man had directed him.

His first steps are sloppy and awkward, reminding that he's tired, that he'd really like to lie down and sleep. But he's in a church, and a part of him wonders if he'll fall asleep and be dead again, won't wake up, won't see Matty at least one last time. So he says awake and gets his legs to cooperate with him as he searches for the nun.

He finds an open iron gate and goes down the stairs, following the sound of a woman's voice.

"... scar may fade, but we don't know for a while."

"Will I get to see my dad soon?"

"We can only hope so. You all deserve to be with your family."

The nun has her back to him, sitting on a stool while a teenage girl sits on a bed. She's wearing baggy clothes, dress thrown onto the floor in a pile with other suits and dresses.

"Sorry to interrupt, but could I get some tweezers or a needle?" He asks, letting them know he's there. The girl looks at him with bright blue eyes and cocks her head to the side curiously. The nun doesn't turn to face him.

"Gwen, why don't you head back to the chapel?" The nun says and the girl looks between them twice before standing.

"Thanks for the clothes." She walks past them.

"Sorry," Jack repeats, stepping closer to the nun. Her back is still to him, "I really just need something to help me get the splinters…"

The nun stands and turns around and Jack's voice tapers off. Something about her strikes him as so familiar. He hasn't seen her in ten - no, in thirty years. She's twenty years older than him now, with wrinkles and weathered skin and the weight of time on her shoulders. It's her eyes that finally get him, that secure who she is. He doesn't recognize them on her, not really, but he knows them. He'd raised a boy who had those eyes.

"Maggie." He says, because what else is there to say?

She looks at him and he looks at her. She draws in a deep breath, dark eyes closing and opening as she exhales. She gestures to the bed.

"Well, let's clean you up."

He mutely walks over to the bed, staring at her, eyes never leaving her. Like if he were to look away, she'd vanish. Maybe she would. After today, who is he to say what is and isn't possible?

He sits down on the bed and she reaches out, taking one of his hands and looking it over. She tuts softly and shakes her head, plastic-gloved fingers grabbing a damp rag. There's a few other pink-stained ones in a pile next to the fancy clothes but she's grabbed a fresh one from a bin of water, squeezing it out and then dabbing on his hands, clearing away the blood and dirt. Jack looks at his hands and then looks back at her. Maggie's focus remains on her work.

It reminds him of one night when he'd gone out for groceries and beat up some muggers. He'd come back with bloody and cracked knuckles and a nearly-healed split lip that had been busted open again. Maggie had sighed and shaken her head and had a small fond smile as she cleaned him up. '_You're a good man, Jack,' _she'd said and then kissed him.

"Did Matty… After I died…" Jack struggles to find how to put what he wants to know into words. Maggie's eyes flicker up to him and then back to his hands as she puts the rag down and pulls out a needle and a pair of tweezers.

"Matthew had no known family after you died, so he was sent to my orphanage." Maggie's voice is old, the years she's lived that he hasn't showing through as she speaks. "I… I tried to be there for him, but… I only ever knew him after your death, but I always imagined that that was what made him so closed off. I did what I could. Whether it was the best choice or not, he is the man he is today."

"What kind of-" Jack starts but breaks off to hiss in pain as she digs the needle into one of his fingers. She doesn't stop, doesn't pause, just extracts a splinter and pats at the blood, "What kind of man is Matt?" Maggie's hands still their work at the question, just for a moment.

"He's a good man. He reminds me of you." Jack's heart sinks at that, and it's like Maggie can tell because she slaps his cheek gently, giving him a glare. "He has your heart, Jack, a good heart. And my stubbornness. He has friends and runs perhaps the most popular law firm in Hell's Kitchen." The reminder than his son is a lawyer lifts Jack's mood. "He's reckless too." Maggie adds with a huff that, perhaps Jack imagines it, but sounds more fond than annoyed.

"Do you see him often?"

"I do." There's surprise in her voice as she says it. "He comes to church every Sunday. During the week, he stops by to talk. For a while, he'd talk to one of the priests here - Father Paul Lantom, if you remember him - but he died recently. It's only within the past few months that he's let me into his life."

Jack does remember Father Lantom. He remembers the man who had come into their home and had taken Maggie by the hand and led her out the door, the last time he thought he'd ever see her. When the definition of 'their home' changed from 'Maggie, Jack, and Matt' to 'Jack and Matt'. But she couldn't stay, not as she was. They both knew that. He's never blamed the priest for what happened.

"He knows." Maggie says, and Jack is so caught up thinking about the days when Matt was so small he could fit in his arms and Maggie had come a quiet shell of herself that he almost misses the quiet words, said as she takes the last of the coffin out of his hands. It takes another heartbeat for Jack to understand what the words mean, what it is that Matt knows.

"... you told him?" Jack asks, and Maggie makes a small huff of laughter, the barest of smiles playing with the edge of her mouth. '_I still love her,' _he thinks, incredulously and without meaning to.

"You'll be hard pressed to find someone who can keep a secret from our son." Maggie gives another laughing huff of air. 'Our son' sounds right when she says it. "He found out on his own. He was angry at first. Angry at me, at you, at Paul. But I believe he came to terms with it. I'm not sure exactly what happened - he shut me out for that time and hasn't talked much about it - but he came back to me, and that was more than I ever could've prayed for."

It's quiet after that, while Maggie files what's left of his fingernails so that they're not so jagged and then wraps them up like the man in the chapel's are. She also cleans the dirt and blood off of his face, blood from the injuries he got from the fight against Creel. The fight feels like a lifetime away, and he supposes in a way it was. She directs him to a pile of clothes, urging him to take whatever he needs. They were donated to the church, and more donations have been requested of the families of Hell's Kitchen for the other newly resurrected people.

There's a pair of sweatpants and a black t-shirt that he pulls out of the pile and puts on, the task made a bit difficult with his bandaged fingers. Maggie busies herself with cleaning the pliers and needle of blood and dirt while he changes, adding the very nice and now very dirty suit to the pile of fancy clothes. The part of him that has been poor his whole life screams at throwing away something so nice, but he also knows that even if he kept it, he'd never be able to wear it again.

Jack and Maggie ascend out of the laundry room together, still nothing more said between them. He looks at her, and finds that he's forgiven her. When they enter the chapel, which has had many more people come in while Jack was gone, Maggie goes over to an old man and takes him back the way they'd come. She gives Jack a last look and he offers her a smile that he hopes conveys what he can't find the words to, that says what the warm clenching of his heart feels. She smiles back.

The other man is right where Jack left him. He's laid down on the pew, curled up and chest rising and falling in a slow and steady rhythm. There's a new man sitting where Jack had been. He had black curly hair that's graying and he keeps squinting at things. His hands are bloody too, but not as bad as Jack's had been. Jack sits next to him and stares at the front of the chapel, at the stained glass, back to having nothing to do but ruminate. He had never been one for stillness, always more for action.

"It was a sorceress." The man next to Jack says. "We're all just collateral damage. The real goal was the resurrection of her wife. But channeling that kind of power did something to her, and now she's on a rampage."

"How'd you figure that out?" Jack asks, not sure where the explanation of their predicament had come from but glad nonetheless to know it.

"I didn't. A friend of mine told me after she dug me out. I'm Ben, by the way." He extends a hand and Jack shakes it.

"Jack." He says in kind. A booming thunder echoes through the church and the quiet conversations around the chapel mute for moment.

"They're getting closer." Ben observes.

"Is it the sorceress?" It feels a bit weird to say the word 'sorceress' with complete seriousness. Ben shakes his head.

"No, it's probably Thor, but if it's getting closer then the sorceress may know where we are."

"I am not dying again." The man Jack had first met sits up with a grumble, scrubbing his face with his hand and brushing away the sleep. "Did I miss anything?"

"I said I'd make sure to wake you if something happens. Nothing's happened yet." Ben reassures the other man. "Go back to sleep, you still look dead."

"You're hilarious." The man rolls his eyes, but the edge of his mouth twitches in amusement. He lies back down.

"You look like you need sleep too." Ben turns back to Jack. "Don't worry, I'll wake you if something is going on."

Jack does feel exhausted. He feels drained. He's worried about sleeping, but his eyelids feel heavy. Ben takes off his suit jacket and hands it to Jack and Jack balls it up and lies down on the pew. Maybe he can just… rest… his eyes…

oOo

"Excuse me? Can I have your attention?"

Jack wakes up slowly, groggily, to somebody talking loudly and a hand shaking his shoulder. Ben gestures to the front of the chapel and Jack can see a priest standing there, commanding the attention of the room. The chapel is now full of people. Most of them are no longer wearing suits and dresses, instead clothed in casual second-hand outfits like Jack. Ben's in an old pair of faded jeans and a baggy shirt.

"What?!" The other man (Jack should really learn his name) jolts awake, hands grabbing the back of Jack and Ben's pew, fingers curved like he's trying to claw through it. He gives a hiss of pain and lets go, cradling his hands as Ben puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder and nods to the priest.

"The Avengers have managed to detain the sorceress." The priest announces. There's no cheering, but there is quiet murmurs of excitement and one loud anguished sob. Jack looks over and sees a woman has collapsed down to her knees, two of the people by her trying to comfort her. "You will all be getting checked up on in the following days by trusted doctors to help us determine the state you're in, but for now there seems to be no negative side effects. We have contacted your families already for you and you may return to them."

It's quiet for a moment but for the sobbing woman, but then excited voices break out all around the chapel, some people even cheering. Ben smiles, but there's something sad about it. Jack looks at the man's hair, the white of age, and wonders if Ben has anybody to come for him. The man behind them is grinning and crying. And Jack himself? He's both excited and terrified. He can't wait to see his Matty, but he also doesn't know his son anymore, not really.

People do start coming in. Families are reunited. Some bring changes of clothes, others food, others just entire barrages of extended family that end in huge group hugs. The Gwen girl who had been down with Maggie runs to a cop that enters and he lifts her off her feet, swinging her around and holding her head close to his chest like letting her go would kill him. Maybe it would.

The other man - Aaron, it turns out his name is - manages to borrow a phone from one of the people who've come in. It's weird, a rectangle with a glass screen he touches, though Aaron says it's relatively low-tech compared to a 'StarkPhone'. He calls his family and ends up crying. Jack looks away, feeling like he's seeing something very personal. Everywhere he looks there are personal moments going on.

Aaron leaves shortly after that, saying he doesn't want to make his family come all this way. Some of the people reunited with their no longer dead family hear and offer him rides. He doesn't accept any, but he does accept money for a cab and a ferry. Jack wonders if he'll ever see the man again.

A man with a salt-n-pepper beard, bald on the top of his head and wearing a set of rectangular glasses, bursts into the church, chest moving up and down in fast movements like he'd run the entire way here. His face lights up when he sees Ben, even as he starts to cry. There's a lot of crying happening in here today.

"Ben!" He shouts and runs the rest of the way to the other man. They hug and the man in the glasses looks like he's almost trying to squeeze the life right back out of Ben.

"Mitch." Ben says quietly.

They leave together, Mitch catching Ben up on current events. Jack catches the names 'Fisk' and 'Karen' and 'Daredevil' but doesn't know what to make of them. The last thing he hears is Ben asking about his wife as they leave the chapel.

Jack is alone.

Anxiety curls around Jack's chest. Will Matt come? What if he doesn't want to see Jack again? What if he hasn't forgiven Jack for dying? What if he doesn't want anything to do with Jack, was fine with him lying dead? What would Jack do if he was faced with that kind of rejection from the boy he had tried his best to care for?

Maggie comes up behind him, a gentle hand wrapping around his arm.

"Come." She says.

He follows her back down to the laundry room.

There's a man sitting on the bed. A black shirt and scarf are lying next to him. There's a myriad of scars on his chest. Jack is sure there are stories to each. There are some fresh wounds, too, still sluggishly bleeding. Dark bruises decorate his skin, ranging in color. A simple silver cross sits on a cord around his neck, hanging innocently. His face is in a similar state as his torso, new and old injuries meshing together. His hair is short and dark, and his head lifts as Maggie and Jack come down the stairs but he doesn't look at them.

Maggie steps off to the side, leaving nothing between Jack and the man.

Jack knows who this is. He knows it like he knows how to swing a good punch, when to strike and when to defend it. He doesn't know how a blind man gets what are clearly fighting wounds, why a lawyer has ragged knuckles. He knows that right now, he doesn't care.

Matt starts to stand, but it looks like it hurts and Jack rushes over so that his son doesn't have to push himself anymore than he clearly already has. He kneels in front of his kid, his boy, his son, his Matty. He wants to pull him into a hug like Gwen and her father had been in, but he hesitates before touching him. Like if he touches Matty, the boy will fade, this dream he's having will end, and he'll be dying in the alley after the Creel match once more.

Trembling hands reach for Jack, and Jack's hands are shaking as he touches Matt's wrists and guides the hands to his face. The shivering fingers trace Jack's face gently, slowly, mapping the surface like Matt has done so many times before, so many times over the year they'd had after he was blinded. They follow the ridge of Jack's nose and feel his cheekbones, scratch against the stubble on Jack's chin and feel around his eyes.

"Dad," Matt says, voice cracking, breaking, "_Dad."_

And now, now Jack finally wraps his arms around his son, ignoring the injuries he has, the blood getting onto his borrowed clothes, and holds his son for the first time in what he's painfully aware has been twenty years. It shows in how Matt is so hesitant, arms taking their time finding their way around Jack. Once they're around Jack, though, they hold him tighttight_tight, _hands grabbing Jack's shirt in fists, head buried into Jack's shoulder. His head used to fit there perfectly, and it still does, but it's a different kind of perfectly.

"I'm here, Matty," Jack whispers, quiet quiet quiet like when Matty has migraines, "I'm here."

There will be time to ask about the scars and injuries later.

For now, all Jack wants is to never let this moment, holding his son like he thought he'd never be able to again, last forever.


End file.
